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Nine months after her break-up, Elena Paparizou decides to put things in order and speaks –for the very first and very last time- about Toni, about how close she got to not wanting to live anymore and about the kid that she is willing to adopt.

I feel dirty. She is in front of me laid down on the red sofa of the recording studio, right next to Athens Metro Mall talking to me with a childlike enthusiasm about her new projects (the new single titled “Mr. Perfect” and the filming of the video with Konstantinos Rigos, her performance - as a Nana Mouskouri’s guest- at the Berliner Philharmonie and her collaboration with Giannis Parios on Pyli Axiou in Thessaloniki). However I have my mind dipped into “everything-yellow”. I want to know – just like yourself – why she broke up. Who cheated on whom, who broke up with whom and in what condition porcelain tableware can be found inside her house in Glyfada, where the couple lived together until March when they broke up (that’s where Toni still lives today - Elena has rented another apartment in Glyfada).

“What do you mean “why it’s over”? It’s over because it’s over. We reached the point where it had to end, “at the end of the road”. I am not going to tell you who pulled the trigger. How does it make a difference if it’s me or Toni who ended it? In the end of the day, the only ones who know what happened are me and him. Nobody else. And I don’t care what’s being written or heard. I’m never going to speak a bad word about Toni. Nobody will hear a bad word about him from me. He was my man and I will support him. We had our own 12 years together, I loved him very much during that time and I will love him for everything he was while we were together.”I insist: “Did it end smoothly or was it triggered by something”? She says: “Both”. I carry on: “Is it certainly definitive?” She says: “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that it’s over”. I continue undeterred: “Do you talk on the phone or do your lawyers contact each other instead”?She says: “Occasionally. Just so we let each other know we are fine”.I go on to ask: “Do you think you should have broken up earlier”? She says: “I will answer sharply. No because I wasn’t ready for it earlier. Things are very simple. People change every day which is something I know well since I’ve changed myself since my father died. I have reconsidered my life, I have set different priorities. Because the things that matter most are firstly “health”, then “love” and then comes all the rest”.I continue questioning: “What would have happened if your father hadn’t died? What would have been different”? She says: “My relationship would have been completely different. I believe I would definitely have a child”.I carry on undeterred: “Would you still want – after all that has happened- to have a child with him”? She says: “If it would have happened, it would have been my child. And I did want to have kids with Toni. We were in a phase “if it happens (to get pregrant), it happens”. Now I don’t want to”.And the final blow: “Did it not bug you to see him going out with another woman so soon and at a place where photographers were present”?She tells me again without faltering:“Whether now or a little later, at some point this would happen. And if something would have bothered me, I would have said it to him privately. Well, they should have both been more careful. Although, from what I know, it was just a coincidence that paparazzi were there. He didn’t go there intentionally. But let me tell you something. So what? Did they do something bad? Even if they went out and got off and had sex, did they harm anyone? Is there something more human from a person wanting to have sex”?The transition is very good to let it go and not grab it. Like a starving dog in front of a big bone, I stumble trying to say - as cutely as I can- :“I agree about the necessity of sex. So when was the last time you had sex”?She looks at me, she laughs loudly and says:“Well, let it be, let it be”, implying longstanding sexual abstinence.So I'll let it be. Temporarily.

As long as we play this game of cat (her) and mouse (me), I try hard to justify my humble instincts to myself, insisting that she ought to tell us what happened with her relationship, from the moment she was the one praising her partner in every one of her interviews, she was the one saying he was the man of her life, her sky and her stars. It’s her obligation, -I claim- to talk about the end of the fairytale that started at 17, when she saw him and said: “This man is a big adventure”.“Toni looked dangerous to me. Manly. It’s what you want to see at 17. And our life together was an adventure indeed. We experienced very intense moments together. We also experienced very silly moments, very tender moments and very bad moments. Just like every couple. And like I said to you before, I will continue to speak all the best about him. Besides Toni and I are still friends. It’s very difficult but we are. Not the type of friends that can go out for a coffee and continue hanging out together. This can’t happen the way things have turned out to be”.

I try to fit inside her mind. I’m thinking what would bother me if I would break up with my wife of seven years plus another 10 years it took me to seduce her. For instance to be forced to leave the house we made together, full of photos and silly souvenirs from vacations - “I’ve only got a few more objects left behind. But it’s OK. Houses don’t possess a soul whereas humans do”-,how we would separate our common friends -“I want my friends for myself. I don’t hand them out. But I can’t forbid Toni to go and e.g. have a drink with my brother-in-law, my cousin’s husband whom I consider to be my sister. I don’t have such hang-ups.”For Elena the hardest part of this outcome was something else: “To explain it to my two nephews, 9 year old Wilhelm and 8 year old Emilio, who both loved Toni very much. I asked my mother and sister to leave the house for a while, I called them (her nephews) by the table on top of which I had placed a cake I had bought and said to them:“Elena and Toni are no longer together”.They got shocked. The older one –frightened- asked me:“Do you think my mum and dad might break up too?”, whereas the younger one, whose mum is divorced and has already been in two relationships since, asked me sharply: “Will you have a new boyfriend now”? What I said to them? “No, I have only two men in my life now. You”.

This woman never ceases to impress me. In my eyes - for once more - she proves to be more “premium” than circumstances allow one to be. Without any hang-ups she answers to all the questions without hiding behind managers, record companies or the friendship she has developed with her fellow jury member on Dancing on Ice and publisher of Nitro, Petros Kostopoulos.Yet this doesn’t make me feel less dirty: What she wants me to point out is how she starts her day -“Ι push the bedcovers aside, I go to the bathroom, I wash my face, I look at myself in the mirror and crack a huge smile. Pay attention, I don’t just crack the smile, I feel it. And then I play music at full blast, drink a cup of coffee and check my mail. I finally feel good with myself. I feel like I’m going through my second puberty. And yes, I will go through the same frolics that go hand in hand with puberty. Plenty of frolics. Wherever the road takes me”.

But I don’t care about the zen upland she has reached now but the lowest point that she had reached before.“I believe that sometimes we must reach our lowest point to rise again. And (to prove) we are stronger than we think. In the end of the day who said life is easy? We have to fight. And I’m here, ready for the battle. There are 10 year old kids out there that suffer from cancer and fight with it every day. And I would complain e.g. because I don’t have a boyfriend? It sounds ridiculous to me. The truth is there was a period of time, before I flew to Sweden, that I would wake up late in the afternoons and say to myself: “There is no reason to live (anymore)”. This is a very ugly emotion. That’s why I was bugged, made a 180-degree turn and left. Of course that happened once I was done with all my obligations, once I made sure I’m not neglecting anyone and having said to my assistants:“Now I want to be on my own”. In fact as long as I stayed in Sweden I even visited a psychologist and it helped me a lot. I had also visited one in Greece, after my father’s death. It’s just different to talk about your emotions in your native language. He/she told me: “wishes and must-do’s in life are only beautiful when they are ours”. Because in the end of the day, it’s you who must take your decisions, not others on your behalf.It’s something that I had done many times in the past because I wanted to satisfy others.It’s not a coincidence that my job consists of this thing: to satisfy everyone, to entertain them, to make sure they are well. Do you know what the outcome of this is? To leave yourself behind.To step aside and allow someone else you trust to take charge. But now, after I spent 5 months examining and rethinking everything, I came to this conclusion:That I know what I want better than ever. That in this particular moment I try to take care of Elena, whom I had put in someone’s pocket and forgotten her there. Now I’ve let her out of the pocket again”.

It’s obvious from her words that her 5 month stay in Sweden had a positive effect on her. “I went there to rest. And that’s what I did for the first time in my life. You can’t imagine how many forests I have walked in and how many rivers I have crossed! I would leave the house and would walk in the forest for hours and when I would get tired, I would lie on the grass”. An equally healing experience for her soul was something as simple as going to the tax office or the super market. For completely different reasons than the ones you suppose:“One thing that I have really enjoyed about Sweden, is that I would always see beautiful people around. For instance, I went to the tax office and my “soul opened up”. I would think: “What a beautiful chick she is”, “what a stud he is”. More specifically I remember that we went to a super market in Gothenburg with my sister and my two nephews to buy stuff. When we got to payment counter, she went to put things in bags and I stayed there to pay. So she then told me in Greek: “Raise your head from the ground finally. Look at this beautiful man.” I raised me eyes, I looked at him and told her: “Yes Aretoula mou, he’s very handsome” and I bent my head down again. Just like I would usually do at first when I avoided looking at/meeting anyone. Indeed the guy was gorgeous. Tall and slim, with blue eyes, beautiful mouth and ash blonde hair. So I paid and when I was about to receive the receipt, I heard my 38 year old sister telling him: “Young man, why don’t you pass your phone number in case my little sister calls you”?I (honestly) tell you, I love those 40 year olds. They have nerve”.

A pause, big smile and then comes the “moral lesson”:“The truth is that -in general- I am embarrassed. And especially after 12 years in a relationship, as you would expect, I have forgotten how flirting is done.Nowadays everything is done through the internet and I get bored by this. I like physical contact. To go out and flirt with someone. However, lately I receive lots of compliments. It shocks me! Not to mention that men in Sweden are more open about their feelings. Especially when they are drunk.It’s very common for someone to approach you and tell you sharply: “Shall we go and have sex”?

Seriously now, is there a special someone? Someone to whom her sexy appearance on Dancing on Ice addresses to, the appearence in the black dress that skyrocketed her cleavage very high on twitter-gossip? This dress made a friend of mine’s mother-in-law think my friend is a lesbian , as they were both watching the show and my friend stuck to praising her breasts.“On one hand I am very open and very flirty, but I haven’t been in another relationship yet. It’s not like I’m going out looking for the one. I’m not ready for a new relationship. A new relationship now feels like a hard task. The only thing I know is that the next man that will come into my life, the one I will choose to have a kid with, will have to accept adopting one, too. Otherwise we will not stay together. It’s something that I’ve promised to myself. Imagine that when I was young, at 15, I wanted to adopt two. Particularly one from Africa and a girl from China, because I knew that they throw them away there”.

I’m sure that Elena will become a perfect mommy. But at this point I want to focus on her sexy side. The one that -because of extra weight- we couldn’t see enough in the past few years. “I started gaining weight over the summer of 2009, right after my father died. I had gone to his hometown, in Karditsa, to rest, and when I returned, my stage costumes started to feel narrower. So when I finished my performances there, I flew to Sweden for 10 days having bought 1-2 new pairs of jeans and shirts. When I got back they wouldn’t button up. And this over a period of time that I was on a diet and did training with Niki Petroulaki 4 days/week. Niki would tell me:“It’s impossible you are not unswollen (yet)”.Then I realized that my thyroid gland had been disturbed a lot. It’s a hereditary disturbance and it’s expressed during a major sorrow. You get swollen and all of a sudden you gain 6-8 kg. Imagine that the normal level is 2 and I had reached 18. Not to mention it takes a great deal of time and drug treatment to lower the levels to normal. Thankfully I’ve gotten a lot better now. But even this is a proof of what I said to you earlier, that I had neglected myself. I would get injured for instance and I would not receive physiotherapy. Imagine that after Eurovision,at Fever, I sang there for a period of 3 weeks while I was suffering from pneumonia, tonsillitis and my temperature would not go below 38 degrees! Nowadays I would not allow this to myself”.

Elena is and looks well again. More than ready for the “second half” (of her career), which includes permanent stay in Greece - something I wouldn’t be so certain about some months ago. I was left with the impression she would completely leave everything and each one of us behind. “When I got back to Greece the first time around -to arrange some obligations I had left behind-, I was very negative about it. And I said “no” to many things. I was ready to fly back to Sweden again. But I realized that I don’t want to leave. I have moved here -before Eurovision already- and I will stay here. I don’t like going backwards in my life. If I leave Greece, I will move to e.g. London, New York, Barcelona or Los Angeles. But not back to Sweden. Unless I have become 45 years old, with kids and have consciously decided I want a very quiet life”.

Something irrelevant:Elena has been interviewed by me many times. In one of them for Pink Woman, 2007 she had said to me:“I remembered one discussion I had with a friend of mine -who knows showbiz very well- about celebrity couples and how they break up. At one point he asked me:“Have you thought that it’s usually men who cheat on women”? In the sense that it’s always been harder for a famous woman to cheat. I got shocked”.I read this quote to her again. Her comment?“What you reminded me of…Yes I think this is still the case. It still is”.The final conclusions are yours. And take into account what she told me when I asked her if she forgives easily:“I want to be forgiving. What I don’t want is to forget”.

Last edited by Derek on Mon Jan 23, 2012 7:51 am; edited 2 times in total

I hope you like it. I hate how there are commentaries by the interviewer among Elena's answers/statements but I hope you guys understand the structure of the interview. I've highlighted her responses in red.Btw I hope Swedish and Redelvis won't get a heart attack when they find out Elena is not willing to return (permanently) to Sweden again. Don't be desperate though. She can still release her songs there or do concerts/festivals but they will need to be released firstly (which is what I'm mostly worried about as I never actually thought she would permanently return to Sweden again)...

Did anyone else understand that at the final paragraph the interviewer is implying that Toni cheated on Elena?

I have to say I am very happy about her statements regarding her current emotional state and her acknowledging she had done a lot of things wrong in the past few years. It sounds like she feels a lot better now and the time she spent in Sweden was very healing for her. Her statements sound very promising, I like how she feels ready to experience some "crazy moments" like she's going through a second puberty.. It's never too late for that as long as she doesn't cross the line. Hopefully that attitude will be reflected on her future projects, her singing, her performances, etc.

I found the super-market incident hilarious. She must have felt awkward.

As for her relationship with Toni, it's very rare for people in such a long term relationship to keep in touch (even if only once in a while) and act like civilized people. Elena has proven once again what a cool person she is and how she honours every single moment they spent together and doesn't throw all these years to the dustbin. I haven't met/heard of a lot of women who would be so open minded and have no bitterness.

About her wanting to adopt a child, it proves what an awesome human being she is! Hope she fulfills her promise one day!

"I sang there for a period of 3 weeks while I was suffering from pneumonia, tonsillitis and my temperature would not go below 38 degrees! Nowadays I would not allow this to myself”

Hmm, now when I think about it, when I have watched some performances from Fever 2005, she have sweated a lot, maybe that have something to do with she was sick? But she have been sweaty many times. So maybe it wasn't because she was sick either.She had fever when she was performancing on fever! :-D

TinaCZ wrote:all singers performing on stage sweat a lot. it's not just Elena.

Some sweat more then others.. Elena sweat much.

And about the part where she say she is not coming back to Sweden..I was not that chocked about that. I have never thought that she will move back to Sweden. But I hope she still having her swedish comeback plans. But it have been quiet for a long time about that. Can't any interviewer even ask if she still plans or what she does.

TinaCZ wrote:all singers performing on stage sweat a lot. it's not just Elena.

Some sweat more then others.. Elena sweat much.

And about the part where she say she is not coming back to Sweden..I was not that chocked about that. I have never thought that she will move back to Sweden. But I hope she still having her swedish comeback plans. But it have been quiet for a long time about that. Can't any interviewer even ask if she still plans or what she does.

I think such questions -strictly about her professional plans- are usually asked on radio inteviews. Apparently it's been a very long time since we could contact her in one of her radio interviews (with messages/emails). She needs to do one interview for Dromos FM and Themis Georgantas. When she was interviewed by him before, he forwarded many messages from fans including questions about her future projects.

Thank you so much, it's a great interview! She said some really interesting things... and the ending... I'm not sure if we should believe what the reporter is implying but anyway, it's already in the past. And I'm really glad that she's happy again.

sonya wrote:Thank you so much, it's a great interview! She said some really interesting things... and the ending... I'm not sure if we should believe what the reporter is implying but anyway, it's already in the past. And I'm really glad that she's happy again.